On-line Virus Scan

Did Facebook Give me a Virus?

I have to admit that when I first read QueenPendragon's story, I assumed she caught a rogue.

I was wrong. The message actually came from Facebook.

You'll be happy to know that Facebook doesn't intentionally infect your PC, or scan your hard drive looking for malware. (Why should they? They already know so much about you.) But Facebook does look for suspicious behavior in how you access the social networking site. For instance, if you appear to be sending out a great many messages in a short amount of time, there's reason to believe that a botnet is sending them out through your computer.

In those situations, Facebook may block your access to protect other users, and recommend you scan your hard drive.

The company has a legitimate concern. Remember the Koobface Trojan ? You'd get a message through Facebook, appearing to be from a friend, trying to get you to play a particular video. Only the video wouldn't play until you updated Flash. And that "Flash Update" turned your PC into a botnet-controlled zombie. Obviously, it's in Facebook's interest to keep that from happening.

Facebook's solution to a perceived threat is for you to scan your computer with a special online scanner that MacAfee makes available specifically through Facebook. I tried the MacAfee scanner out, and found it harmless, in that it doesn't load a lot of junk onto your PC (although it may require you to update Flash).

You might want to augment it with a scan by the security software of your choice (when you have reason to be suspicious, the more scans the better), but you'll have to run MacAfee's to get clearance from Facebook and have everything working again.

Read the original forum discussion .

Online Virus Scan, Free Online Virus Scan, Free Online File Scan

Most of us have experienced virus or malware problems once in a while. When we are stuck in such a situation, we begin searching for the best online virus scan sites to run a free scan and understand what is wrong with the computer. In a critical situation, you need a solution quickly! You wouldn’t really love to search hundreds of sites to find the best free online virus scan service. Here is a list of the best free online virus scan sites that will not only dig out viruses but also sniff out spyware, malware or keyloggers. These websites have been tested by millions and have been proven to give wonderful results. If you are also looking for a free virus scan for your computer, browse through this list and choose the best online virus checker out of thousands of virus scan services.

Here is the list of the “best free online virus scanners” and free virus removal tools that can help you expose the type of virus/spyware present on your computer and to handle the situation.

BitDefender offers one of the best antivirus security software. It is the best among top ten antivirus available. The BitDefender Online Virus Scan, known as the BitDefender QuickScan is an online tool which uses in-the-cloud scanning to detect malware running on a PC very fast, usually less than 60 seconds. QuickScan makes a list of digital fingerprints (or hashes) of the programs that are running and of other critical files. It then sends this list to the server. If the server doesn’t recognize a hash, it requests the file to be uploaded so it can be thoroughly analyzed. When the analysis is complete, the server returns a .clean. or .infected. verdict for every file in the list. Check your computer with the 1 minute BitDefender Free Online Virus Scan .

Kaspersky is one of the most popular security solution for home users and business users. When you are running through a critical solution and need to detect the infection which is already on your computer, Kaspersky may be really helpful. The first and foremost step to take when your computer is infected, is to understand the type of threat you have. Kaspersky Online Scanner 7.0 can quickly scan your system files and detect the type of infection. Kaspersky Online Scanner 7.0 starts from the web site of Kaspersky Lab and runs in a separate browser window. It downloads the Kaspersky Labs work files and anti-virus database to a temporary folder on your computer. Then the software uses the records from its anti-virus database to identify malicious objects during computer scan. You can run the Kaspersky Online Scanner 7.0 here.

InfoWorld

Bug-Free Computing, Stop Viruses, Squash Worms, and Smash Trojan Horses

Operate a Personal Computer

Network World

InfoWorld